A week before jury selection for the trial to prosecute the murder of Teresa Halbach, Dean Strang, representing the defendant Steven Avery, asked the judge to dismiss some of the charges against Avery. In his request, Strang responded to the prosecutor’s argument that dismissing certain charges would leave them “swimming upstream.”
On November 9, Steven Avery was arrested. On November 29, Scott Tadych was interviewed by lead investigators Mark Wiegert and Andrew Fassbender, where he said he was trying to sell one of Bobby Dassey’s .22 rifles to a coworker. Teresa Halbach would later be shown to have been shot in the head.
He suggests that it's unclear who pulled the trigger leading to Arbery's death. "Arbery's mental health records and prior convictions help explain his apparent aggressive nature and his possible thought pattern to attack an armed man," Barnhill wrote.
In the memo, he stated that Arbery's mother wanted him off the case because his son worked in the Brunswick District Attorney's office. Brunswick District Attorney Jackie Johnson had previously recused herself from the case because Gregory McMichael was a retired investigator from her office.
Dassey was 16 when he confessed to detectives that he helped his uncle rape and kill Halbach. A judge threw out the confession in 2016, ruling it was coerced by investigators using deceptive tactics. That ruling was later overturned by a federal appeals court and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his case.
MANITOWOC, Wis. - The Wisconsin Supreme Court has rejected a request by Steven Avery to review his conviction for killing a young photographer in 2005, a case that became the focus of a popular Netflix series "Making a Murderer." Avery has been fighting unsuccessfully for years to have his conviction overturned.
After a 27-day trial, Avery was found guilty of murder and illegal possession of a firearm in March 2007. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Later that year Dassey was also found guilty and given a life term, though he was eligible for parole in 2048.
Avery's nephew, Brendan Dassey, was also convicted in the case. He currently does not have any appeals pending. Their cases received worldwide attention with the 2015 release of the Netflix series "Making A Murderer."
Robert ZellnerKathleen Zellner / Spouse
Zellner and her team of trial lawyers have won groundbreaking judgments and verdicts — and tens of millions of dollars in damages — for clients from all walks of life. Ms. Zellner is the only attorney in the country to have won five multi-million dollar verdicts in less than a year.
Despite these steps forward for juvenile justice, Dassey remains in prison. The United States Supreme Court has refused to hear Dassey's case, so he has exhausted his judicial paths of appeal. A sentence commutation from Evers is his only remaining chance.
Steven Avery, at the age of 22, was wrongfully convicted of rape. He spent almost twenty years in prison before being exonerated through DNA testing.
Steven Avery's ex-fiancee, Jodi Stachowski, is making new claims against him -- including that he once put her into circumstances similar to the circumstances that led to the death of Teresa Halbach.
Avery filed a civil lawsuit against Manitowoc County; its former sheriff, Thomas Kocourek; and its former district attorney, Denis Vogel, seeking to recover $36 million in damages stemming from his wrongful conviction. The suit was settled in February 2006 for $400,000 following his murder indictment.
July 8, 2021Dolores Avery / Died
Avery's post-conviction lawyer, Kathleen Zellner, has identified Lenk and Colborn in court documents as being her main targets of suspected police corruption. Zellner won't say whether she is also exploring others as well.
Summary: Discovered on Saturday, Nov. 5 , 2005, by volunteer searcher Pam Sturm in the corner of Avery's Salvage Yard. The day before, then-Calumet County Sheriff Jerry Pagel and investigator Wendy Baldwin flew over the salvage yard and nearby quarries but did not locate the vehicle at Avery's, reports show.
Working theory: The decision to plant charred human bones was in the works prior to Jost's discovery on Nov. 8. "Mr. Avery contends that the victim's key and bones were planted on Nov. 7, 2005, and were discovered on Nov. 8, 2005," Zellner stated. "Most of Ms. Halbach's bones and 29 of her teeth were not found in Mr. Avery's burn pit." In addition, Tom Sturdivant, an arson investigator with the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation in Wausau, would lead efforts to excavate the burn pile pit. Sturdivant hadn't been at Avery's during the previous three days. Jost and Sturdivant did not photograph or videotape the bones, even though this marked the biggest evidence discovery of the weeklong criminal investigation.
In 2014, officer Kyle Baars, a three-year officer, planted a murder suspect's identification card and a .22-caliber bullet inside of a backpack that Baars found inside the suspect's house during a police search. Baars kept quiet about his misconduct for several months before confessing to a detective.
USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin found there was a tendency of Manitowoc and Calumet counties to selectively reprocess a room, a garage or a vehicle — even after that location underwent an extensive evidence search previously.
On Dec. 4, Zellner energized her more than 170,000 social media followers by tweeting that the cops planted evidence against Avery — just not in the way that Avery's trial lawyers theorized.
Working theory: Colborn or Lenk put the plates into the abandoned station wagon that was missing its windows and was within a short walk from Avery's red trailer. "The license plates were removed from the victim's RAV4 and put into another vehicle at the time the victim's vehicle was deposited on the Avery property," Zellner's court filings show. In August, Zellner informed the court that she intends to obtain the fingerprint comparisons of Lenk and Colborn. At Avery's murder trial, special prosecutor Ken Kratz downplayed the fact that none of the eight fingerprints found inside and outside of Halbach's RAV4 came from Avery. "If the unidentified fingerprints on the victim's vehicle match either Officer Colborn or Officer Lenk, it would be significant evidence of their involvement in moving the victim's vehicle onto the Avery property."
Steven Avery's attorney, Kathleen Zellner, filed an inch-thick motion in the Manitowoc County Clerk of Court's Office on Friday — and with it came more questions about how this case will unfold.
Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General Thomas J. Fallon is listed as the special prosecutor on Avery’s circuit court case. Fallon and Assistant Attorney General Gregory M. Weber are listed as the attorneys on Avery’s appeals case in the motion Zellner filed on Friday.
Avery’s attorneys are waiting on a state response to the motion Zellner filed Friday in Manitowoc County Circuit Court, according to Justin Scott, a spokesman for the Midwest Innocence Project where Zellner’s co-counsel, Tricia Bushnell, is the director.
Zellner revealed in court papers that Radandt and Hillegas made independent false statements to authorities during the early stages of the murder investigation, actions that now heighten suspicion toward both of them. Prior to the discovery of human bones at Avery's burn pit on the afternoon of Nov. 8, 2005, Radandt claimed he remembered seeing large flames coming from a fire in Avery's burn barrel behind Avery's garage back on Halloween. According to court records, Zellner's investigation debunked Radandt's version of events, calling his credibility into question. Zellner also introduced evidence that Hillegas used a fake name on at least one occasion to gain access to the Avery property. She also introduced Hillegas' phone records as evidence to show that Hillegas received 22 consecutive phone calls from unidentified law enforcement officials on Friday night, Nov. 4, 2005 — the same night Zellner said Halbach's RAV4 was moved from Radandt's quarry to the outer ridge of Avery salvage. Hillegas also "misrepresented that the victim's blinker light was broken months before and that she had made an insurance claim for it," Zellner wrote. The attorney suspects the front-end damage may have occurred when the RAV4 was relocated from the quarry to frame Avery for the murder.
Avery's new defense attorney Kathleen Zellner told Newsweek she felt you missed crucial evidence that Halbach's cellphone records show she left his property alive. What do you say to that?
Lawyers Dean Strang and Jerry Buting, who represented "Making a Murderer" subject Steven Avery, have begun a speaking tour, "A Conversation on Justice.". AEG Live. Making a Murderer lawyers Dean Strang and Jerry Buting may no longer be representing Steven Avery in his high-profile murder case, but they tell Newsweek they are happy ...
In March, Zellner told Newsweek she hoped to have Avery's conviction overturned because he had ineffective counsel. The lawyer claimed Strang and Buting failed to present in court cellphone records that proved Halbach left Avery's property in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, alive on Halloween 2005. (Zellner is also working on uncovering new evidence ...
Strang and Buting represent Avery in a Wisconsin court. Netflix
The judge that overturned Dassey's conviction said he had "intelligence deficits." Do you think the same could be said for Avery—did he perhaps not have the intelligence to pull off this murder?
The Netflix docuseries presented considerable doubt about Avery's guilt and his attorneys posited that he was framed by the county of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, for filing a $36 million lawsuit against them for a previous 18-year wrongful imprisonment for rape. Since Murderer became an overnight hit in December 2015, ...
Buting: Yes, but the thing about a case at that stage… victims' families, friends and associates, once a defendant has been charged with killing them, they don't cooperate with the defense. They don't have to cooperate and they usually don't. It's so important that police do that investigation and look at the people [in their life]... particularly a woman, look at the men in her life that are close to her.
Gregory McMichael told police they followed Arbery because he appeared to be the person seen on a surveillance video breaking into homes, the police report said.
But that may not have happened until June because Georgia courts are largely closed due to the coronavirus. The video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery has been spread widely on social media.
Barnhill said in the letter that he was recusing himself from the case over a conflict of interest. In the memo, he stated that Arbery's mother wanted him off the case because his son worked in the Brunswick District Attorney's office.
Brunswick District Attorney Jackie Johnson had previously recused herself from the case because Gregory McMichael was a retired investigator from her office. Gregory McMichael is also a former Glynn County police officer.
Why it took more than 2 months for murder charges and arrests in the death of Ahmaud Arbery. ATLANTA — The Georgia Bureau of Investigation charged a father and son with murder Thursday evening in the death of a black jogger who they suspected was a burglar running through their neighborhood, eventually shooting him on the street ...
Alan Tucker, a criminal defense attorney in Brunswick, said in a statement Thursday that he released the video because "there was entirely too much speculation, rumor, false narratives and outright lies surrounding the event.".
Waycross Judicial Circuit District Attorney George E. Barnhill said in the memo that Gregory McMichael, Travis McMichael and their neighbor William Bryan were in "hot pursuit of a burglary suspect" when they shot Arbery, 25, as he jogged through the Satilla Shores neighborhood just outside of Brunswick, Georgia.